


Russian Roulette

by wren_rw



Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV), The Defenders (Comic), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Language, Oscar Wilde said punctuation is for cowards and he was right, description of injury, emotionally constipated Matt Murdock, vauge reference to violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25152025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wren_rw/pseuds/wren_rw
Summary: “The expression refers to a  game of risk in which a participant loads a revolver of six chambers with one bullet, spins the cylinder randomly, and fires.”When the reader is injured at Matt’s side, there’s no one left but him to patch her up. Her wounds may not be all that’s in need of healing.
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Reader
Comments: 4
Kudos: 41





	Russian Roulette

It took an awkward limbo for both Matt and Y/n’s body to fit through the open window without setting her down or knocking her head against the frame. 

Once the battle was won, Matt was left panting with his back against the wall, her weight still cradled in his lap.

“It's alright, Matt,” Y/n breathed, slipping her hand along his side to check that his stitches were still sutured closed. Her entire body ached at the prospect of crossing the apartment on her own, but it wasn’t as if Matt was in better shape himself. 

“I can make it from here.”

The man answered with a stifled groan as he fought his way back to his feet, shouldering her weight as if he hadn’t heard.

She wasn't sure what she had expected- he was always like this when she got hurt.

Mute. Jaw set. Muscles tense liked a coiled wire, eyes dark and laser-focused until he had done everything in his power to set her right.  
As long as he could detect the copper tang of her blood in the air, he was a man possessed, and anyone who blocked his path did so at their own risk. 

Y/n was settled onto the kitchen counter before he turned to make quick work of the first aid supplies. “Shirt off.” 

She bit back a wry remark with some difficulty, and did as she was told. Matt’s expression was already bordering on murderous. 

Didn’t strike her as the best moment to test him. 

A wince escaped her as the fabric got caught around her elbows, and she shifted to find an angle to pull it over her head that didn’t set her nerves on fire.  
The sound had hardly left her mouth before Matt's hands were on her arms, stilling her movements.

“Stop. You're making it worse.” 

To an untrained ear, Matt’s voice was sharp and unforgiving. But Y/n knew him better. 

It was the voice that he took on when he was in pain.  
And, to be completely honest, she was desperate to fix it.   
It was ridiculous, really, how far gone she is for this man. She must be, when she’s the one with blood running down her back, and yet every cell in her body still screams at her to help him instead. To cup his face in her palm and swear to him that this wasn't his fault, find gentle words to ease the self-condemnation written all over his rigid shoulders.

But that would cross into foreign and dangerous territory, and the fire behind Matt’s eyes hinted that he wasn’t in the best state for that sort of conversation. At least not until she had been wrapped into an impenetrable cocoon of ace tape and bandages.

So she conceded to grin and bear it, doing her best to cooperate as Matt maneuvered around to pull off her shirt while brushing against as little broken skin as possible.  
For his sake, she kept her jaw clamped shut against the sounds of protest that threatened to escape as alcohol swabs were wiped across the road-burn on her ribs. 

After three minutes of allowing Matt to work in silence, his hands slipped behind her to get a feel of the damage on her back.  
A harsh breath was punched out of his chest. “Fuck.”

Y/n shook off the morbid urge to laugh, and closed her hands around Matt’s wrists. “I'm fine, Matt.” 

“You're not.”

He wasn’t wrong. But, she was alive, and the bastard who tried to kill her was lying motionless in a ditch. “Could have been worse.” 

_Could have been worse._

The second the words were off her tongue, she knew it was the worst thing she could have said. 

If Matt’s demeanor was cold before, it was now something closer to open fire. _  
Could have been worse, because it could be her at the bottom of that ditch instead.  
_Matt almost threw the case of alcohol wipes unto the counter, his forced composure crumbling. “You never should have been there in the _Goddamned_ first place!” 

The apartment was silent until he breathed, wiping his face over with his hands and fixing his posture into something bordering on civil.

“I don’t get it.” 

He uncapped a tin of Lidocaine and began to methodologically rub the salve into the worst of her injuries. Y/n eased into it despite herself, the numbing agent going into action blessedly fast. 

“You already know I’m a lost cause.” His voice was low, as if he were afraid of being heard. “So why follow me into the line of fire?” 

Y/n knew better than to sigh.  
The ache in her ribs warranted for shallow breaths at most- but _God_ if he didn’t make it tempting.  
If she didn’t know better, she might think that Matt was deaf _and_ blind considering how astoundingly oblivious he was. 

“Don’t you think I’ve spelled that out for you already?”   
“Humor me.”

In all honesty, she almost hit him for that. Because a year ago, when this love was new and fragrant with young hope, she would have. Would have trusted him with anything, trusted the universe to play out in a simple matter of _he loves me_ or _he loves me not._

But let the record reflect that nothing was ever simple when it came to _Matt fucking Murdock._ She’s confessed her love to him a hundred times before, and the only purpose it’s served was transforming the man into an emotionally unresponsive brick wall.

The way she saw it, every confession was like a game of Russian Roulette.  
Each attempt is a pull on the trigger.  
Bullet says that she tells him the truth _\- I’m in love with you, you helpless idiot -_ and he actually believes her.  
But odds are it fires with an empty round. All her heartfelt words blow straight over his head, leaving him just as staggeringly clueless as he was before. So far, it’s always been the latter. 

Then again, she’s never been one to be perturbed by bad odds. 

“Look at me. What do you see?” 

Matt’s tongue felt like lead under the weight of all the things he couldn’t say. He saw everything in her. 

“Your heartbeat. Your warmth.” 

It wasn’t enough. The silence stretched thin as Y/n waited for him to elaborate, to offer what she apparently wanted to hear. 

“Your pulse is fast.” Matt finally relented under her silent expectation. “Your skin is hot, beneath the surface.” 

Y/n’s voice was slow, as if trying to explain something to a child, or soothe a cornered animal. “And what does that mean, Matt?” 

As a boy, when he was still learning how to harness his gift, his mentor Stick had asked him a similar question. A woman’s silhouette was wrapped around a man’s arm, her vital signs the same as Y/n’s now. Heat radiated off the flush of her skin, and her heartbeat skipped over itself in it’s haste. Pheromones scorched the air like woodsmoke. 

Back then, he’d mistaken her symptoms for fear.

_What’s wrong? Is she sick?  
It’s worse. She’s in love._

Matt didn’t understand what Stick meant by that back then. He does now. 

_And what does that mean, Matt?_

“It means you’re either scared, or very stupid.”  
_Fear was warranted, after everything he’d done. But love? No one was reckless enough to make that mistake again._

Y/n’s lips curled into a smile, and Matt didn’t need his heightened senses to know the expression never met her eyes.

“If you still think I’m scared of you, you’re not paying attention.”

Her tone was light- almost tongue in cheek, but Matt saw it for what it was. Her hand had been played, her last bet cast, and finally, her cards were laid out on the table. Nothing left to hide. Not anymore. Matt suddenly found it difficult to breathe. 

“Stupid, then?” 

It was a cheap quip, but he tasted the unspoken plead on his tongue- _back out, back out now, because I don’t think I can hold you off this time._

A ghost of a laugh escaped both their mouths, something dry and almost impossible. Because this was serious, _nothing_ remotely amusing about it, and yet- wasn’t this just _typical_? Wasn’t this just like them?

“Yeah, that sounds about right.” Y/n grinned, and _Lord- her mouth was so much closer than it had been before, hadn’t he told her not to move?_ But then again, perhaps she wasn't the one leaning in. He had always been little more than a moth to her flame. 

And no, it wasn’t amusing, wasn’t right, and sure as hell wasn’t smart, but _there they were, and wasn’t this just like them?_ Just like them to run head-on into the most impossible situation to be found, and laugh? 

Stick had told him, time and time again, _no one will ever be reckless enough to love you-_ but then again, Stick had never met anyone like her. Maybe _\- just maybe,_ she was the immovable object to his irresistible force, just stubborn, and reckless, and _stupid_ enough to love the devil. 

There was no room for doubt between them by the time their lips met. 

She was soft. Warm and steady, and Matt suddenly felt the safest he’s ever been since Battlin’ Jack stepped out of the ring for the last time.

She felt like everything he’s never had the right to touch- and yet their lips aligned so perfectly that even he couldn’t argue they were ever meant for anything else. 

Then she slipped her fingers into his hair and maybe- _just maybe,_ it was him who had been stupid, all this time. 

Nothing about this could be wrong. 

Stick’s chiding in the corner of Matt’s mind was suddenly drowned out. The warning bells he had expected never came. 

His mind was finally, _blessedly, impossibly,_ quiet. 

There wasn’t room in his awareness for anything that wasn’t her.  
She had always been his world, but he felt like he _finally_ had the chance to explore it. God knows what took him this long. 

It took him longer than it should have to remember that they both needed to breathe.  
It took even longer to remember how to.   
Even as they broke apart, Matt kept their foreheads together, his arms framing her against the counter, fingers interlocked.

He wasn’t quite ready to step away, to lose her to the depthless fog. But then again, her fingers squeezing his told him he didn’t have to.

And true, the time would come for him to finish wrapping her hands and back, fish out the pain meds from the cupboard, wrap her in blankets and pray to god that she could sleep through the aching pains. 

In fact, tending to her is probably the only instinct strong enough to pull him out of her arms. 

But for the first time he can remember, he’s not waiting for the clock to run out. They have each other. They have time. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first published work on this site! If you've gotten this far, thanks so much, I appreciate you. If you feel like leaving any kudos/comments, that would b v cool of you. Thanks again for reading!


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